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This book is the culmination of a clinical investigation of female homosexuality based on the analyses of 12 women each of whom believed she had consciously chosen homosexuality as her lifestyle. Dr Siegel presents a new way of viewing the aetiology of female homosexuality as well as a creative approach to its psychoanalytic treatment. A major portion of the book is devoted to the descriptions of eight of her cases including the presenting symptoms, developmental history and course of the treatment for each. There is also a section on the countertransference issues which arose in the treatment of these women as well as a chapter which considers the parental profiles of these patients.
The major thesis of the book is that female homosexuality results from a specific type of developmental arrest which precludes the establishment of heterosexual object choices. Siegel writes, 'When schematization of the body and the inner representation of the body as useful body image were being laid down, the vagina and inner space per se were not included' (p. 23). She goes on to link the failure of these women to develop a complete body image to chronic trauma in their early relationships with their mothers. According to Siegel, the women she treated knew they were female, but they were never able to 'traverse the usual developmental states that make a female into a sexually mature women. For them, this calamity had to do with their inability to take full possession of their vaginas (p. 22). The clinical finding which is significant for our understanding of the aetiology of female homosexuality is that in all of Siegel's patients there was a failure to identify with their mothers especially as mature sexual women.
Siegel spends much of the first chapter reviewing the literature of female sexual development. It is an excellent summary of the classical as well as the current theories. Recent developmental studies based on the observation of children have reported the existenc